After years of waiting and patient preparation, the time had come. Saturday was the day of destiny, when the Greater Western Sydney Giants took their place among the teams in the AFL. ANZ Stadium was the venue, with the Giants taking on cross-town rivals the Sydney Swans.Few pundits gave the newcomers a chance. The TAB were offering the Giants a 90 points start, with many experts predicting a triple figure winning margin for the Swans. With 17 Giants making their AFL debut, the club fielding the youngest team in the history of the AFL, surely it had to be a mismatch.

Despite the possibility of a lopsided contest, a crowd of 38,204 turned up – a figure that, depending on one’s outlook, sees the glass half empty of half full. Some may have expected more, some less; and no doubt that number will be analysed in greater detail in other articles.Ticketek tried an interesting innovation in selling tickets for the match, asking everyone whether they were Giants or Swans. Although there was no need for segregation from a security perspective, the southern end of the ground was decked out in orange with the northern end in red, like a divison in Parliament. But although the Swans had enough numbers to win the vote, it was no landslide.

Before the game, the Giants unveiled their mascot, G-Man. A cartoonish Giant, with too much hair product and enormous teeth in a delirious grin, G-Man is sure to be a hit with the kids. After his on-field appearance, G-Man was signing autographs and making appearances in the childrens’ time-out centre behind the aisle at the southern end of the ground.The teams burst through their banners. Both sides and the crowd respectfully observed a minute’s silence in memory of AFL great Jim Stynes. The national anthem was sung; and then it was game time.

Finally the game got under way. The Swans started quickly, putting the Giants’ defending to the test. But they rose magnificently to the challenge, with Chad Cornes putting on an inspirational smother to stop a goal, similar to Heath Shaw stopping Nick Riewoldt in the grand final replay. But despite the Giants’ desperate defence, the Swans soon had three goals on the board.The Giants moved the ball forward, and it was marked on a tight angle by Curtly Hampton. Tall, slim and quick like a West Indian Curtly; the Alice Springs-born Hampton brought up the Giants’ first score, a behind. Shortly afterwards, co-captain Callan Ward received a handpass and played on to carve himself a place in the history books as the Giants’ first goal-scorer. It would be the Giants’ only goal of the first term, with the Swans leading by 17 points at quarter time.But despite the Giants being behind on the scoreboard, their fans were in voice. Led from the Cheer Squad behind the goals, the calls came up. “Are you ready? Give us a G! G! Give us an I! I!” and so on. “What does it spell? GIANTS!!!”. It was their team song in the NEAFL last year before their new was written for their entry to the AFL. Orange flags waved and a few banners were raised.

Two early goals for the Swans started the second term, but suddenly the Giants came to life. A solid mark by Nathan Wilson saw the Giants’ second goal; and less than a minute later Will Hoskin-Elliott played on to score another. The atmosphere lifted in intensity, “Let’s go Giants, let’s go” reverberating around the ground.The Giants were contesting every possession, James McDonald landing a solid hit on Luke Parker; while marquee signing Israel Folau moved into the ruck for his best period of play for the evening. For a fleeting moment, momentum was favouring the newcomers; but Shane Mumford steadied the Swans with a goal from a tight angle, and the Swans led by 24 points at the long break. The Giants had been hard at the ball, making the Swans work hard; but too many times they couldn’t find any options on the half-forward line, managing only three goals for the half.

Any hopes of the Giants pulling off a fairytale comeback win on their AFL debut were blown out of the water in a devastating burst by the Swans at the start of the third term. Lewis Jetta was a star for the Swans during that period of play, with a virtuoso soccer-style goal. Jetta scored two goals and Josh Kennedy two as the Swans had five unanswered goals in the first twelve minutes of the quarter. And there could have been another; when Kieran Jack’s shot clearly hit the post but the goal umpire was about to award the goal before being over-ruled by the field umpire, who sent the decision upstairs for the first video replay under the AFL’s new rule.The Giants had been under pressure, the Swans scoring at will during those twelve minutes. The inexperienced Giants could so easily have panicked, capitulated and allowed the floodgates to open, conceding the 100 plus margin that had been predicted. But they didn’t.The remainder of the third term wasn’t pretty to watch, but it was character-building for the young Giants. Maybe over-using the ball in defence, they chipped the ball to themselves, switching play as they worked hard to keep the ball at all costs. But they managed to stop the bleeding on the scoreboard, stopping the Swans from running in for easy goals; and the Swans would only manage one more goal for the night.Not that the crowd were discouraged by the threatened blowout. The Giants’ fans had waited a long time for this day, and it was a win for them just to be there. They weren’t expecting to win, but continued to make plenty of noise for their team. “We are the Giants. The mighty mighty Giants. And if they can’t hear us, we’ll shout a little louder” came out from the vocal fans behind the goals.

But that period of play at the start of the third term had blown the margin out to 64 points, and there would be no way back for the young Giants. Goals from set shots to Jonathan Giles and James McDonald in the last quarter would see the Giants claw back one point of the deficit in the last term to win the quarter; but it was the familiar strains of “Cheer cheer the red and the white” that rang out after the final siren.

A 63-point win for the Swans. They had played a solid game, unspectacular but getting the job done in the way the Swans have so often before. The Swans will be up there when the business end of the season takes place, and they’ll have plenty more comfortable wins this year. It’s a relief for any team to get the four points in the opening round, and first-up bragging rights in the first Sydney Showdown go to the Swans.

But for the Giants, there were positives. Many of the young kids that were brought in for their first AFL game stood up and relished the challenge. The Giants fought and contested every possession, and although out of their depth in terms of experience, they showed plenty of ticker; especially after the Swans got the run-on in the third quarter and the margin could so quickly have blown out to embarrassing levels.It’s a base to build on for the Giants. Not a great performance, to lose by ten goals; but enough positive passages of play to show the Giants how to be competitive against the top sides. Not a great crowd, but enough to show interest is there and support can be cultivated. It lays a foundation, but the work to build the club and the team is far from complete.